Saturday 22 February 2014 12.32 EST
First published on Saturday 22 February 2014 12.32 EST

There was a long time here when Manchester City's supporters could have been forgiven for wondering where the free-scoring, joyriding team, averaging four goals in every home game and seeing off all-comers, had gone.

Manuel Pellegrini's side had plodded through the first hour and looked on course for a third successive league game without a goal until finally they flickered into the old routine.

Yaya Touré's decisive contribution, turning in Aleksandar Kolarov's low cross after 70 minutes, was the culmination of an improved second-half performance and the fact that Stoke, after an encouraging start, appeared to lose any sense of ambition. Mark Hughes's side really ought to have shown more adventure because there was no doubt this was one of the least distinguished performances from Pellegrini's men.

Instead, Stoke invited trouble and eventually found it. Even on an off-day, the most prolific side in the country are always liable to find a way if the opposition are this obliging.

The most positive aspect for the winners is that it did at least show they are capable of nicking the unsightly 1-0 win that can always come in useful for a side with title aspirations. Yet it was a strange display.

Probably the most memorable moment came shortly after the goal when the substitute Jesús Navas rolled the ball into Edin Dzeko's path for what should have been a simple tap-in. Dzeko had played miserably and, from a yard out, somehow managed to get his feet tangled together. The kung fu kick on the goalpost that followed it probably emanated as much from embarrassment as annoyance.

Dzeko had become a scapegoat for the crowd even before that moment – they know it here as a Lee Bradbury-type performance – but he was not alone in lacking sureness on the ball. Álvaro Negredo has had a splendid first season in Manchester but he has faded badly and was substituted early in the second half. With Dzeko looking so maladroit, Pellegrini will be anxiously hoping Sergio Agüero is fit for the Capital One Cup final against Sunderland next Sunday, not least because the luckless Stevan Jovetic lasted 12 minutes as a second-half substitute before picking up a hamstring injury.

This was certainly a different City performance from those days when Norwich were hit for seven, Tottenham and Arsenal had six put past them and Manchester United sieved four. "We cannot pretend that we will win by three or four goals in every match," Pellegrini said.

"Teams come here to defend. We must try to find more space in these defences but it is important to know how to win in both ways – and if you cannot score lots of goals to get a clean sheet and have the patience to score at least one. We didn't create many chances because Stoke defended very well, with all the team behind the ball, but we had the patience. The satisfaction is the same because we have three points more on the table."

He made a valid point, and will be encouraged by the way Touré and David Silva kept probing at the visiting defence, as well as the energy of Navas after he had replaced Fernandinho.

All the same, a team with City's ambitions might be concerned about the sudden and unexpected deterioration in their attacking play. "It's normal during the season," Pellegrini said. "Every player can have a bad day. Dzeko had a bad day. Maybe he was nervous after missing that goal. But I continue to have trust in him. Álvaro Negredo was coming back from an injury and these things happen sometimes. I trust all of them and I am sure they will recover their normal performance."

Stoke have now lost all six of their league games on this ground with an aggregate 15-0 score, and Hughes complained that in the first half there were "three or four opportunities when my players were taken out", indicating that Vincent Kompany might have picked up more than one yellow card. "At half-time we were really pleased, but we knew there would be a reaction. From then on, we found it difficult to get out. But I don't think there was a great swell of momentum, or that we had to repel attack after attack. We just made a couple of consecutive errors for their goal."

Samir Nasri started the move, playing the ball out to Kolarov on the left and Touré was the quickest to react to the full-back's cross, stretching out those powerful limbs and sweeping the ball past Asmir Begovic for his 16th goal of the season.